Audit working papers;

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Bulletin HASKINS & SELLS 53
Audit Working Papers
(A paper read by Mr. W. H. Bell before the Tri-State Society of Certified Public Accountants, at
Baltimore, Maryland, June 24, 1919.)
THE importance of the substance and
form of working papers is threefold:
first, to the accountant originating the
papers, not only in the audit procedure and
the preparation of his r e p o r t , but in
answering questions that may later arise
from any source; second, to the person or
persons who review and check the report;
and third, to the accountant making a sub­sequent
audit.
There are two general tendencies regard­ing
the data contained in working papers,
viz., deficiency and superfluity. It is prob­able
that the latter is more prevalent than
the former, but that the tendency to pre­pare
superfluous working papers diminishes
in direct ratio to an accountant's advance
in proficiency as an auditor, that is, as he
becomes more practical. Granting that an
accountant charged with the preparation
of working papers has the requisite know­ledge
of the principles of auditing, it should
be almost unnecessary to tell him what to
do, except as a means of facilitating his
work, other than by telling him what not to
do.
The most glaring examples of super­fluous
work, or misdirected energy, are
mere transcripts of accounts, or so-called
analyses of accounts designed to classify the
entries, which utterly fail to accomplish
what might be written on one line. The
principles actuating accountants in prepar­ing
such papers appear to be to obtain in­formation,
no matter how unreliable or un­necessary,
and to check the mathematical
accuracy of the accounts in that manner.
Practically, they are often meaningless
figures. Cases in point are: analyses of
reserves for depreciation without determ­ination
of the rates and the asset values
constituting the bases for the credits and
without information regarding the charges;
elaborate tabulations of sales, cash receipts
and disbursements, accounts receivable and
payable controlling accounts, etc., the only
practical benefit from which may usually
be derived in a great deal less time by